


Quiet Tropics

by KyraG



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Everyone Is Alive, Fluff, Gen, Human & Troll AU, Slice of Life, this is just cute an' happy an' niCE THINGS, we need nice things ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3138335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyraG/pseuds/KyraG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The jungle that faces you straight off the sandy beach is much larger than the forest around your place. Here you thought that the forest you had loved to ‘get lost’ in, pretend that you were an explorer in an uncharted location with only your wits about you, was the biggest forest you’d ever know. But here you are, faced with untamed wilds filled with unfamiliar sounds. The smell of the saltwater continues to cling to your nose, but now you can begin to smell the thick humidity that emanates from the thick growths as you walk into the first line of trees and ferns. Alien cries of birds and who-knows echo around you, and it makes you wonder what even lives on this spit of land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Tropics

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblruser Shegnannagings for the Homestuck Secret Santa. Enjoy!

This has to be a dream. The water splashing about around the boat as it creaks through the waves, the sun gleaming down hot and bright as it has been for hours now. The salty smell of the air is clean and clear even by your own normal standards, and the occasional cry of a seabird as it flies overhead is just barely audible over the hacking motor and propellers churning the waters below. The boat hits a particularly rough patch of a wave and sends a chilling spray shooting up everywhere, including all over you. The cold mist sticks to your face and hair and clothes, reeling your mind back in from the blue expanse that surrounds you above and below.

One part of you wants to say that this four hour trip really has felt four hours long, especially on a watercraft that sounds as if it’s going to fall apart if a wave too large decides to grace the hull with its presence. But on the other hand, you’ve been mesmerized by it all. Sure, the ocean hasn’t exactly changed since you and the troll Jane referred you to set sail, but entranced you have been nonetheless by the endless scenery. You call yourself an explorer, but the most you have explored was the forest behind your house and the town you were raised in.

This may very well just be worth considering a dream, with how incredible this trip has been so far.

The sun is straight above in the cloudless sky and your wind-tossed hair is now dry and salt-crusted and quickly becoming hot as your black hair is prone to doing. You lean back in your seat once you resettle yourself, staring up at the clear light blue. Even with your glasses off, there was nothing above to appear fuzzy.

“I am going to have one _hell_ of a tan this year,” you mumble to yourself with a grin as your reach up to your head and rustle it to at least try and get some of the salt out. Try being the key word, and instead you’re greeted with another spray of sea mist. You can hear the captain of the rickety motorboat snicker at your quiet curses at getting more wet than you had planned.

“If you’re all done lookin’ off to the sky and forgettin’ about the waters,” the troll said with laughter still in his voice, “then you oughta look ahead. Pretty sure that’s the island you were talkin’ ‘bout.”

“Whoa, really?!” You sit up quickly, careful to not shake the boat with the sudden movement, and turn to face the front. Poking out of the horizon is some sort of mountaintop. No, the top isn’t exactly pointed like a mountain… A volcano? A quiet ‘whoaa’ slips past your lips as you stare while also being rather thankful that this supposed volcano appears to be dormant. The greenery below the towering structure is quickly becoming more and more apparent as the troll kicks up the speed on the motorboat.

“Yeah. We’ll be there in about fifteen, twenty minutes. You sure you know what you’re doin’ all the way out here, right? I’m not comin’ back until nightfall whether you’re happy here or not.”

You look back at the troll, his form hazy without your glasses. You shuffle into your pocket and put them on as to more clearly see him and everything else. He’s got a slightly permanent grumpy scowl to his face, his purple-flushed earfins only twitching to the wind. His glasses catch the sunlight as you look to him, making you squint.

“Yes I know what I’m doing all the way out here! And nightfall should be long enough. I’m not worried at all.” You cross your arms, more than a little indignant that Jane’s friend would consider you confused for going hours into an island in the middle of the ocean.

… Well, perhaps it was more than a little strange. But you are certain that what you’re looking for, _who_ you’re looking for, will be there.

If not, John was going to get hit on the head for giving you bad information.

 

****

 

It doesn’t even feel like fifteen minutes later when you’re dropped several meters offshore. You complained about having to swim the rest of the way to shore, but the troll just argued that he didn’t want his poor hand-me-down boat bashed up any more than it already was. “There’s no dock, so unless you wanna circle the whole fuckin’ island you can just swim,” he had groused. So now you’re sopping wet as you make landfall and look back to the boat, your ride giving you a quick wave and you returning it to show that yes, you did indeed make it ashore alive. You make a mental note to clean your glasses once your shirt dries, and you’re eternally grateful that it’s the middle of high summer. Everything will dry relatively quickly with all this heat and sunlight, though the salt may never leave anything you own by this point.

You get out your twin pistols and check them over. You don’t want them to be waterlogged after all – they were a gift, and you want to keep them in good condition. You wear them around all the time in their holsters because it looks cool, but you’ve never once needed to actually use them. Or even wanted to, for that matter. As you open the two guns while you walk, only a little bit of water comes out. They seem to be alright; you quietly note as you then spin the barrels and put the guns back in their holsters. You attempt to rustle the saltwater out of your tangled hair, and it’s then that you finally look up to look upon the landscape that you have spent a week imagining.

The jungle that faces you straight off the sandy beach is much larger than the forest around your place. Here you thought that the forest you had loved to ‘get lost’ in, pretend that you were an explorer in an uncharted location with only your wits about you, was the biggest forest you’d ever know. But here you are, faced with untamed wilds filled with unfamiliar sounds. The smell of the saltwater continues to cling to your nose, but now you can begin to smell the thick humidity that emanates from the thick growths as you walk into the first line of trees and ferns. Alien cries of birds and who-knows echo around you, and it makes you wonder what even lives on this spit of land.

You get an itch in the back of your mind that you are going to get terribly, awfully lost. Maybe you should’ve brought your old compass or something.

“Well, that’s okay!” You exclaim to yourself loudly, to try and comfort yourself in the face of getting lost in a jungle filled with unknown beasts. You pump your fist into the air a few times as you speak, marching in beat with your ever-racing heart straight into the undergrowth. “That’s the point of adventure, to go head first into the unknown with only your brains and body, to find what has never been found before!”

“But it has been found before, silly.”

The voice comes from above and it makes you wail in the most undignified manner. You trip over yourself as you stumble backwards and look up, searching for the source of the voice. Hanging from a branch by her knees is the source, bright green eyes mimicking the grin on her face as round glasses hang on by seemingly only the will of the gods. Her hair drapes down from her head in a long swath of black, wavy and tangled just like your own.

Just like your own… You try to compose yourself just a bit, instead of looking like your half a cry from shitting yourself completely.

“Hi! Uhm, are you –”

“ _BARK!_ ”

You let out another cry of surprise, turning around to see a massive white canine facing you with bared teeth and fur raised. Your first instinct is to run, but instead you’re just frozen in confusion and astonishment.

“Bec, no! He’s alright, he’s not going to do anything.” As the girl speaks to… what must be her pet, you reason with yourself, you can hear her get back onto the branch proper and scuttle down to ground level. You’d go to watch her, but instead your eyes are peeled to the angry mass of snowy fur that’s still growling in warning. You step back to give the dog a bit more room, though you’re not even sure if that’s… even a dog. Maybe a wolf of some kind, or one of those wolf-dog hybrids you’ve heard of? You start to calm back down as the girl gets down completely and stands next to the animal – by the gods its haunches are up to her ribcage – and she pets it with that same grin she had when she was staring down at you.

“Ah…” You’re a bit calmer, but your heart is still racing a mile a minute and now all questions have fled. “Sorry, uhm, ah…” Why are you even this flustered, you berate yourself as your tongue does loop-de-loops in your mouth.

“Oh, you don’t have to be sorry! It was too tempting to spook you though, but I guess I forgot to tell Bec.” She chuckles a little and smiles; even with her lips closed her front two teeth still poke through. She rubs the dog’s head again, and you can just barely see his tail wagging slowly.

“Oh. Okay. Uhm… Are you…?” Your tongue is still made of mashed potatoes and your brain isn’t much better.

“Jade? Yup, that’s me! And this is Becquerel, but I just call him Bec.” She continues to pet the dog’s head as he stares at you, but his expression at least seems to be softening. Maybe he won’t attack you if you do more than breathe and stumble over your words. Maybe.

“It’s, uhm, it’s really nice to meet you.  My name is Jake, and I think I’m –”

“Your cousin? That’s right!”

Your jaw kind of just hangs open. So much for a dramatic entrance, you mentally grouse. You weren’t sure just what you were expecting to do upon meeting her, but being scared twice and beaten to the punchline was at the bottom of the thought-list. So now you're just stuck at figuring out what to say next, now that she has already gone and practically done all the introductions. You... should have planned more ahead than this. I've got to say something, anything that isn't completely ridiculous or make me look like even more of a buffoon than I have already done; you mentally berate yourself as you have been almost this whole trip. It's not your style to beat yourself up over stupid mistakes; you make a lot of them and you just let it slide, but this is almost colossal in the way of idiocy.

Jade can see just how grouchy you're becoming from this and she just grins even more and laughs. "No, no, don't worry, it's okay! I kinda just... knew already." Her smile is comforting and her cheerful voice brings your mind back up to speed on the matter. The dog, Bec, he's now sitting practically on Jade's feet and is panting in the noonday sun. "If you’d like, I could bring you to my home. It's a little better to talk there than it is to talk out in the middle of the jungle, at least for first interactions." She keeps that smile and you can't help but smile back.

"That sounds really splendid. Here I was worried I was going to get lost, I've never been in a place quite like this." Oh you dork, Jake. Jake you doofus. You begin to berate yourself again, because in the face of family that you only just recently found out about you go here and you say the most obvious thing imaginable.

"Yeah, but I think grandpapa moved us out here because it was so strange. But come, come! My house is a little far in, so we should try to hurry!" Becquerel gets off of her feet as she speaks, sensing that it's time to go. You still can't believe just how big that dog is. She doesn't seem to notice that you are a complete dummy, or at least she's keeping it well hidden. You hope that it stays like that. But before you can say anything else to her, she turns and starts on a full-tilt run right through the trees, with Becquerel going ahead of her.

"Wait, wait!" You just got done swimming, you're not even fully dry yet, now you have to run?! But run you must, and so you start after Jade. "Jade, why do we have to run?!"

"Because running is fun, why else would we?" Jade looks back, her hair whipping around as she moves. "Don't tell me you can't keep up!"

"No, no, I can keep up!" At least you think you can. You're not unfit by any definition, but you have no idea how much your endurance will keep up with someone that's keeping pace with a monster of a canine who all live in a forest. You give the slightest breath of relief when she slows just enough that you can catch up.

"Alright! This is just so that we're not someone's dinner."

"Dinner?!"

Jade starts laughing so hard from your astonished reaction that she has to stop running. Becquerel doubles back around, having noticed that his master isn't on his heels. You stop running and stand next to her, panting from the sudden activity and the shock that you were just given by your cousin.

"No, come on! Are you serious, stuff out here will eat us?!"

"Well, yes!" She's still laughing, but she regains her composure and stands up straight. "There are beasts here that will eat us, but they won't right now. They're not doing much active hunting at this time of day, plus Bec' will protect us."

Of course he will. You look at the dog again, and the way he stands next to Jade gives no room for doubt.

"Well..." You pause for a moment and look around, wondering what exactly you should say next now that you have had the shit metaphorically scared straight out of you more than several times in the past twenty minutes. "If none of these... monsters are around, then we can take our time out here. I am extremely curious, and I'd like to see more of this island while speaking with you."

"You should have just said that in the first place, silly." She brushes her hair behind her shoulders before poking her glasses back up on her face. You unintentionally do the same - you hardly even notice when you feel the need to poke up your own glasses. "It's a wonderful place, this island. You like to explore, right?"

"Yeah, I love to. It's what I do in my free time. How did you guess?"

"I'm pretty good at guessing things." Jade starts to move again, still moving at a surprisingly fast pace for a walk, but at least it's a walk this time and not a run. You walk right a few steps behind her and to her left side, as Becquerel is taking up her entire right side. "Plus, I love to explore too, as did my grandpapa. It's only natural anyone else related to the both of us would also love to explore."

"Oh." It's about all you can think of at the very moment. If only because Jade keeps talking about this grandfather of hers in the past tense, meaning that she's living here all on her own. Her, this dog, and heavens know what else that lives on this spit of land for who-knows-how-long. You may have grown up somewhat alone, but you were never completely alone. You always had everyone else in the neighborhood; you always had Jane, you always had Dirk, and you always had their friends and their relatives. You may have enjoyed your alone time, but if you ever needed someone, they were there. But Jade, she seemed to have nothing but this dog.

Just thinking about that made you a little sad. The thoughts of her loneliness kept you quiet, and so the din of the jungle and the quiet crunching of three sets of footsteps filled your ears instead of the joyous ringing of Jade's voice.

You may have seen a few birds, but Jade was right. Most of the animals must be taking their midday naps at this time. While you are still a little worried about what was out there, you were grateful that nothing was deciding to threaten your lives. But with nothing being said between the two of you, you start to look around a bit closer. You can start to see the birds that make the noises; vivid and large feathered creatures that mind their own business. On a few branches, you can see snakes coiling their thick bodies around and around in endless loops as they absorb the heat of the day. Surely beneath your feet there are thousands of unseen insects, though more than plenty are making themselves known with shrill chirps and scrapings in their hidden places. You're sure you can see more than a couple spiders in their webs, quietly waiting for something unfortunate to fall into their carefully crafted traps. This world was so different, so alien, compared to your own. These beasts were all similar to things you knew of already, but here they were, larger than what you could have ever expected and more real than you had probably thought of in the recent past. The internet doesn't always bear the truth of the living, even with all the hi-res photos around.

"I guess you're pretty stunned by all of this, huh?" Jade's voice almost merges right into the jungle, but it reaches your ears nonetheless. She looks back at you, brushing a wayward twig out of her hair. It must've gotten caught there while you and she were running. You touch your shirt to see if it's dry, and you deem it dry enough to clean your glasses.

"Yeah... Everything's just bigger than I had imagined." You take off your glasses as you reply, making sure to note your steps as you wipe your lenses. "I mean, there is stuff like this back where I am, in the forest near my place and whatnot, but..." You shrug as you put your glasses back on your face, only to scowl because there's a huge smudge right in the center of your right lens. Of course, you take your glasses back off to fix it. "This is so different."

Jade just smiles in response before turning her head back around to watch where she's walking. Even though she faces forward, she continues to talk. "I kinda remember what the animals were like before we moved here. They were all small, even Bec' was small back then." She pats the dog's head as she talks about him, and he wags his tail in response. "There are small things here too, naturally. Things tend to be smaller on islands, just because their habitat is smaller. But there are also a lot of big things here, just because there's nothing else to compete with."

Well of course, that actually makes a ton of sense. But...

"Are they really so different? You make it sound like the beasts here are a lot different to those on the mainland."

"Oh, they are. Maybe you'll even get to see one!" She sounds enthusiastic about this, but you aren't quite as certain that such would exactly be good. Even herbivores are known to be vicious when threatened, and you don't think you want to risk your life exactly like that.

"Uhm, I'm fine, thanks." You grin a little, able to feel that it's crooked and that your teeth are sticking out in that dumb way they do.

"But they're so cool! They are nothing like what you can imagine, and it's all a part of exploring this island! You don't have to worry too much, because even the nasty ones don't mess with Bec'." More tail-wagging from the dog that you'd be willing to call a monster yourself. Yeah, that's probably why they don't mess with Becquerel. He's one of them.

They know these things, surely.

"Well... I guess if it's a part of exploring, then sure." You know you don't sound sure, and the look on Jade's face when she glances back shows that she also knows. She rolls her eyes and pushes her glasses up.

"You'll be okay, don't worry." She then turned back around and got herself into a jog, with Becquerel trotting alongside her. You have to pick up your own pace to keep up, almost running at this rate because goddamn does she go fast. The trees are thinning out and the sunlight is shining through the branches, allowing for more vegetation underfoot that you have to push through just to keep up with the girl. When you see her stop just outside the edge of the clearing woods, you breathe a sigh of relief and slow your pace, which you quickly realize was a good idea.

Just ahead is a sheer cliff that drops into a clear, calm ocean. You stop a few feet away from the edge to stare ahead, entranced. The water is glassy and you can see the shadows of massive beasts that dwell just under the surface. Sharks, they have to be sharks, but you didn’t think that sharks that big still existed. Everything else is massive on this island, why can’t the sharks be also –

Your eyes snap back into focus to see Jade gone and Becquerel looking at you from the cliff’s edge. Oh shit. You run over with your chest clenched tight, only for it to loosen in a shuddering sigh when you see Jade going down narrow, shallow steps. You scowl in your adrenaline-fueled state, looking between the amused white dog and the girl that doesn’t seem to notice what just transpired above.

“Dag-nabit, Jade! I about had my heart jump outta my throat with you disappearing on me like that!” Jade finally looks back at you when you yell down to her, but she’s just all grins and sun glinting off her glasses.

“I thought you saw, silly!” She beckons you to follow her, and Becquerel barks as he trots down after her. You think he’s about too big to go down that narrow stairway, but down he goes like it means nothing. Though to be fair, Jade was also traversing the sheer cliff with ease. Perhaps they’ve been here a lot and this was nothing to them…

You hear something strange off in the forest, a buzz-like humming noise like large insects. You’d rather have nothing to do with any bug capable of making such a noise and you carefully make your way down. You hug that cliff face like it was a long-lost lover and you keep your eyes peeled to the sky.

“Jake, you’re on the ground now.” You feel a tapping on your shoulder, and you turn your head to see Jade’s bright green eyes staring you down. You jump, and you expect to lose your balance and fall to your untimely death. But instead, you just shift your weight a little in the sand.

Sand? You look down and sure enough, it’s sandy ground beneath your dirty shoes. Your heart goes back into your chest where it belongs and you let out another sigh. You look over, and there’s Becquerel looking up at you again with eyes like glazed ice, his tail wagging and he looks just as amused about your condition as he did earlier as he pants. What a brat of a devil-creature. You look up to ignore the dog and back to the crystalline waters ahead, though now you can see what you missed earlier thanks to the shark scare. Ahead are ruins, half-obscured by waves, its top eroded into a meaningless lump by the salty winds. You can still see the creatures beneath the waters swimming about, though now that you’re closer you’re… not entirely sure if they’re sharks.

Jade walks ahead to where the tide is just barely lapping on the shore and she sits, crossing her legs underneath her skirt and gazing out to the waters. Becquerel lies down next to her, curling beside her like a protective shield. “I wish I had scuba gear so that I could explore more of those ruins. We’ve done what we could, Bec’ and I, but we can’t dive down deep enough to get to a good entrance.” Jade chuckles a bit after speaking, then looks back to you as you walk closer to the tideline. “Maybe before you leave we can go out and you can explore some of it for yourself.”

“Ah, I guess, but…” Your gaze shifts from her to the waters where a shadow is coming rather close to the two of you. You glance down to see if Becquerel notices, but he’s got his head in Jade’s lap and she has a hand on his head. “Useless dog,” you grumble as you look back to the water.

There are purple eyes peeking up at you, unblinking even in the saltwater. You go still, hoping that it will think you’re a rock or something and it’ll go away. But the eyes instead slowly drift closer, nostrils rising up shortly before the rest of its head breeches the surface. It looks… oddly like a goat, but its ears have fins like a fish and its fur sleek like a seal’s. But those sideways pupils stare you down all the same, and then it opens its mouth just slightly. You can see rows of serrated teeth, like a shark’s.

What. The fuck. Is that. You ask that question in your mind but your body is still frozen, and all you can manage to do is turn your eyes ever so slightly back to Jade. She lives here, she has to know what to do with this. Right?

Perhaps she would if she was awake enough to notice. Or awake at all, really. “Jade,” you whisper harshly, trying to get her attention without making any sudden movements or sounds. “Jade!” But she doesn’t stir. Becquerel opens an eye to look at you, and then he raises his head to look at the monster within the waters. You expect the monster of a canine to get to his four feet and start barking and making a scene, but instead he just yawns. “You useless beast…!” You whisper, glancing back to the goat-thing. It hasn’t moved any closer, but you don’t want to startle it any.

You then remember that you have your pistols. Of course! If it does anything, you can just shoot it, and that’ll be the end of that. You slowly and quietly reach for them where they rest in their holsters, but you feel a soft thwap against your ankle. You look down and over; there’s Becquerel looking at you with that piercing stare. “Well I don’t see you doing anything better, you mangy thing.” You know you’re terrified when you start conversing with a dog-wolf-thing. His tail thwaps your ankle again, then he gets to his feet and shakes off the sand. You put your eyes back to the seagoat and it’s now carefully watching Becquerel, a low growl emanating from its throat. It’s low and hissed, like a crocodile noise.

Another thwap to get your attention, and you look over to see Becquerel trying to get Jade standing. She must really be asleep, you reason with yourself as you go to help the dog move your cousin. You scoop your arms beneath her armpits and lift her to her feet, all the while you keep an eye on the goat-thing to make sure it doesn’t get any closer. It has, your mind tells you. Jade’s small and compact, the kind of build from someone that’s lived in the wilderness for most of her life, but even so you’re not sure if you have the stamina to carry her. You look down at Becquerel again, and he’s giving you… some sort of meaningful look. You think it means something, but only because the strange beast has an even stranger look in his eye. “You want to carry her? Can you even do that?” You’re still whispering, too afraid to speak any louder. The dog doesn’t move, he just keeps looking at you expectantly. “Okay, okay, fine…” As carefully and quietly as possible, you get Jade settled onto Becquerel’s back. He takes her like he’s done this so many times before, and she doesn’t even shift when moved around. How often does this happen, you wonder to yourself as Becquerel turns around and walks up the shore.

You glance back at the goat, and it seems to be glowering back at the three of you, baring its teeth and sinking its head into the water halfway. A bark from the stairway makes you nearly pee yourself, as it’s the first loud noise that’s happened in all of what seems eons. Becquerel is trying to get you to follow, and you don’t need any further reassurance to do so. A fish’s tail rises from the water and slaps back down, and you can only assume that that tail belongs to the seagoat.

That’s it, no more looking. That’s enough. You keep telling yourself that as you follow the dog and his keeper back up the cliff. You can still hear the huffing and tail-slapping from the sea monster, but you fear that if you turn to look again, it’ll come after you. So you face the sky again and wonder where Becquerel will take you and Jade.

Hopefully someplace safe. Hopefully.


End file.
